Lincoln Center’s White Light Festival seemed more of a catch-all marketing construct than an actual festival when it was introduced in 2010. And it still has its amorphous qualities, but by celebrating them, instead of trying to don a thematic straitjacket, this multidisciplinary exploration of spirituality, in its many guises, has become an important part of the fall season.
The festival’s fourth edition will open with a free concert by the Campbell Brothers, a group that combines elements of country blues (Chuck and Darrick Campbell’s pedal steel guitars) and gospel, at the David Rubenstein Atrium on Oct. 24.
All told, the 2013 festival will include 23 performances, including films by Peter Mettler and Philip Gröning; dance performances choreographed by Akram Khan and Mark Morris; sacred works by Bach, Taverner, Tallis, Beethoven, Messiaen and Arvo Pärt; an overview, by Jordi Savall, of Jewish, Christian nd Muslim music from the Balkans; a concert by the Malian singer-songwriter Rokia Traoré, and a reprise of a hit from the first White Light Festival, the Manganiyar Seduction, a music-theater work by the Indian director Roysten Abel.
The festival brings several renowned early-music groups to Lincoln Center, starting with the French conductor Emmanuelle Haïm’s Paris-based ensemble, Le Concert d’Astrée, which will perform Handel’s “Aci, Galatea e Polifemo†at Alice Tully Hall, Oct. 26, and Mr. Savall’s Hespèrion XXI will offer “The Cycles of Life: A Musical Exploration of the Balkans†at Alice Tully Hall, Nov. 3. The soprano Anna Caterina Antonacci’s “Era la Notte†program, which she sings Nov. 13 and 14 at the Rose Theater, is built on Baroque repertory, and includes a performance of Monteverdi’s “Combattimento ! di Tancredi e Clorinda†in which she sings both roles as well as the narration.
Two choral groups that specialize in sacred music are on the prospectus as well: the St. Thomas Boys Choir of Leipzig - an ensemble from the church where Bach was the music director - will sing a Bach and Vivaldi program at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin on Nov. 12, and the Tallis Scholars will juxtapose Tudor works by Taverner and Tallis with recent scores by Pärt and Nico Muhly on Nov. 16.
The JACK Quartet will revisit one of its specialties, Georg Friedrich Haas’s String Quartet No. 3 (“In iij. Noct.,†2001), which is performed entirely in darkness, at the Clark Studio Theater on Nov. 19. The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra is playing a contemporary program, too, though instead of darkness it is offering a visual component,by way of several multimedia works by the Dutch composer nd filmmaker Michel van der Aa, at the Manhattan Center on Oct. 28. And both the Cleveland Orchestra, at Avery Fisher Hall on Nov. 4, and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra and Choir, at the same hall on Nov. 10, will move between contemporary scores and standard repertory.
Other potential highlights of the festival include the United States premiere of Akram Khan’s “DESH,†at the Rose Theater on Nov. 6 and 7; Ms. Traoré’s concert, at the Rose Theater, Nov. 15, and the return of “The Manganiyar Seduction,†a theater work about a Muslim sect from North India that includes Hindu deities in its worship, at the Rose Theater, Oct. 31 to Nov. 2. The festival ends with the Mark Morris Dance Group in one of Mr. Morris’s pivotal works, his 1988 choreography for Handel’s “L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato,†at the David H. Koch Theater, Nov. 21 to 23.
